Seeking volunteers to raze properties

Aug. 15, 2013

Richard and Stephanie Diehl, whose 8th Ave. home in Union Beach sustained structural damage during Hurricane Sandy, are considering walking away from their home as they have been denied for state grants to rebuild their home. Wednesday, August 14, 2013. UNION BEACH, NJ / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER/MARY FRANK

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UNION BEACH — Volunteers and organizations from around the country answered a plea for assistance and poured into the hard-hit borough of Union Beach after superstorm Sandy.

Now Union Beach is seeking help again — this time to demolish homes wrecked by the storm — after federal authorities have declined to fund the razing of scores of homes.

“We’re just calling in every chip we possibly can to just help, help, help,” said Borough Administrator Jennifer Maier. “We’re reaching out to everyone we have dealt with since the storm to try to get money for the rental of demolition equipment and fuel and volunteers to operate the equipment to help homeowners get the homes demolished.” Watch the video above to hear more from Maier as well as from other residents on how they feel about the situation.

The borough is backing the effort but it is Maier and two of her fellow congregants at Gateway Church of Christ in Holmdel who are leading the drive.

The plea follows a dispute between Union Beach and the Federal Emergency Management Agency over funds used to remove homes. Union Beach officials say that FEMA reneged on a promise to pay for the demolition of 92 homes.

FEMA says it can’t raze that many homes because they are not on the verge of collapsing.

FEMA gives and doesn't

Maier said that FEMA paid to remove the remains of 170 homes that volunteers demolished in the months immediately after the storm. But the job wasn’t finished.

“We have 92 more homes and they said OK,” Maier said. But FEMA, in an effort to get more funding to the borough, recommended the town switch into a different FEMA program that paid for all the work, Maier said.

FEMA told Maier and other borough officials that they had to perform environmental and historical reviews of the properties awaiting the wrecking ball, Maier said. The borough did that and filed other paperwork. And then FEMA sent out a team of inspectors. They turned out to be structural engineers, she said.

“They didn’t enter any of the homes. They just looked at them from the sidewalk,” Maier said.

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FEMA came back and said they would only reimburse eight of those homes for asbestos removal, demolition and carting, Maier said.

“We were clearly shocked,” she said.

Fifty-five of the homes have asbestos materials that the homeowners must remove themselves. That costs about $8,000, Maier said. Add to that the cost of demolition, $10,000, and the cost of removing the debris, another $3,000, she said.

Bill Vogel, FEMA’s deputy federal coordinating officer for the New Jersey response to Sandy, declined to say whether the borough was misinformed by FEMA or misinterpreted what it was told since he did not attend any meetings between Union Beach and the agency. But he said federal policy gives the agency no option.

“We can only grant grantees money for homes that are in imminent danger of collapse,” he said.

Left waiting

That leaves people like Doug and Laura Larsen in a bind.

FEMA was there to help the couple, still paying for a rental apartment in Matawan for them and their cockapoo, Low Tide, named 11 years ago because of their love of being near the water. The couple took steps to prepare for demolition and waited.

“It’s kind of disheartening,” Doug Larsen said. “We did everything they told us to do.”